Polish president proposes restricting state benefits for Ukrainians

WARSAW (Reuters): Poland’s president unveiled plans on Monday to limit Ukrainians’ access to child benefits and health care, while also proposing a ban on the glorification of a 20th-century Ukrainian nationalist leader, in a sign of a hardening stance toward refugees.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest backers since Russia invaded in 2022, but some Poles have grown weary of large numbers of refugees, while tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv over World War Two Volhynia massacres have at times come to the surface. Official data shows some 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens currently reside in Poland.

President Karol Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist inspired by US President Donald Trump, promised during his election campaign this year to put “Poles first” and to limit the rights of foreigners in Poland.

“I did not change my opinion and I intend to fulfil my obligations and I believe that (family) benefit should only be granted to those Ukrainians who make the effort to work in Poland, the same with health care,” he told journalists.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Ukrainian refugees are currently eligible to receive the monthly family benefit of 800 zlotys ($219) per child if their children attend Polish schools. Other EU countries such as Germany have also proposed cutting benefits recently.

In Poland, the president can propose bills and veto government legislation. The government, currently led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a pro-EU centrist opposed to Nawrocki, can similarly block the president’s proposals, creating deadlock.

HISTORICAL STRAINS

Nawrocki also proposed on Monday tightening the criminal code to ban the promotion of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader who fought both Nazi and Soviet forces during World War Two, and his insurgent army.

“I believe this bill should clearly address Bandera and equate the Bandera symbol in the criminal code with symbols corresponding to German National Socialism, commonly known as Nazism, and Soviet communism,” Nawrocki said.

Many Ukrainians regard Bandera and his militia as heroes for the resistance they mounted against the Soviet Union and as symbols of Kyiv’s painful struggle for independence from Moscow.

But he is remembered by many in Poland as a symbol of anti-Polish violence. Bandera is associated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which Warsaw says carried out mass killings of Polish civilians in 1943-44, especially in Volhynia.

Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.

Publicly promoting Nazi, fascist or communist ideas is subject to up to 3 years of prison under the Polish criminal code.